In this age of “email overload,” knowledge workers must allocate a significant amount of time required to manage their emails. While a number of techniques have been proposed or suggested for reinventing email systems, the most popular commercially-available products, such as Lotus Notes® and Microsoft Exchange®, remain essentially unchanged, ‘overloaded’ communication tools.
Knowledge workers often must synthesize and re-use information that was previously created. Knowledge workers typically must leave the context of an email application in order to find the information necessary to reply to email messages. When the user leaves the current context to gather information (for example, from an online resource or local hard drive) it can cause a delay of hours, or even days. This interruption places the response at risk of falling through the cracks and it increases the cognitive burden. The interruption also increases the feelings of email overload on the user since this task is now extending over time and the user must continue to keep track of the task.
A need therefore exists for improved email systems that automatically generate relevant content in context without requiring users to leave the email application.